Module 7 Action Inquiry Essay Merit Pay

In June of 2014, the Superior Court Judge Rolf Treu filed his final ruling on the educational debate of the teacher tenure laws of California, ruling out five California Educational Code laws. However one day after said ruling, Attorney General Kamala Harris filed an appeal to the Supreme Court of California. The Superior Court favored Vergara’s side claiming the Teacher’s tenure of California unconstitutional because it violates children’s civil rights to an education. “Student’s Matter,” a non-profit organization founded by David Welch, organized nine students to file this case. Their plea was that every student around the world deserves a good education taught by good teachers and the tenure principles in this state makes firing bad teachers almost impossible, giving students in poorer districts an unfair education in comparison to other wealthier, privileged districts. The defendants officially include the State of California, Teacher’s Union supporters Jerry Brown and Tom Torlakson who are the State governor and State Superintendent of Schools respectively, the California’s Teachers Association, the California Federation of Teachers and the Teacher’s Union of California. This ruling and it’s immediate appeal was and remains a strong source of tension between the Teachers Union and it’s supporters as well as the “Student’s Matter” organization and thousands of impoverished

Educators all across America are staging walkouts in protest of low wages and inadequate school funding. They are demanding state budgets that support public education spending and salaries that meet the national average. What started as a grass-roots movement in West Virginia has quickly spread to Oklahoma, Kentucky, Arizona and Colorado, with other states threatening to follow suit unless their funding is increased. Teacher across the nation are making it clear that they will not stand for being disrespected and disregarded by politicians anymore.

Robert Lehnen and Guodong Liang talk about incentive pay programs and how productivity are affected by equivalent and bonus pay. According to Liang, incentive pay will be able to motivate teachers given that their hard work as a teacher pays off through increased pay. Lehnen also has a similar point when viewing different perspectives of teacher pay in Indiana. First, he talks about the 10-month work year that teachers have, saying it is a benefit and reason for lower salaries among teachers. Also, according to Lehnen (1994), the Indiana State Chamber of Commerce looks at test scores to consider performance among teachers and if scores are not high, spending within the districts will remain the same. Liang presents an incentive based pay, rather than Lehnen bringing other perspectives to the table concerning the necessity of raising pay compared to high test

Would it be a good idea if teachers get paid more than usual? For the most part

Remember that one teacher that you loved, that made you want to go to class everyday just because of their pure enthusiasm for teaching, odds are that teacher is paid at least 100 times less than your favorite basketball player. Nowadays, kids dream about becoming a professional basketball and football players, hoping they can become a millionaire doing what they do during recess and gym class. Kids see posters and advertisements glorifying these guys broadcasters talk about on the sports channel. Many hope to be them, but not many hope to become the heroes that affect them and that they see everyday; their teachers. The reason for this is pay. I come from a family of teachers, and have seen the effort that teachers put into helping their students reach their full potential. Additionally, I have also experience first hand the economic stress that teachers’ low paying salary puts on the teachers and their families. Professional athletics live a luxurious life, bouncing balls and making goals, while teachers work overtime struggling to pay the bills.

Inasmuch as implementing a merit pay system is not illegal, it can cause legal concerns. As stated by Pullin (2013), the legal concerns will arise due to how a merit pay system has been established and the rubric to determine who is eligible for the reward. For example, if a teacher perceives a school leader does not like them, the controversy will be the ratings are not accurate on their observation. If the ratings are not accurate, it will result in the teacher not receiving their merit pay bonus. In my district, the teacher rating system is based on 80% teacher practice. As the school leader, I am required to observe their delivery of instruction, data analysis, differentiation, curriculum alignment, classroom climate, and professional responsibilities. According to the observation tool, one or two words will make the difference if the rating is Proficient 1, 2, or 3.

I respect your opinions on teacher tenure and merit pay. However, teacher tenure is not always a good thing. Yes, job security is important but sometimes teachers will not put in the effort needed to be successful teachers because they know they will not lose their jobs. It is almost impossible to fire teachers with tenure and sometimes those teachers should be fired. As teachers we should always strive to be the best for our students but it is human nature to cut corners or slack off if we feel we can get away with it. Tenure makes it possible for teachers to feel secure enough to slack off or cut corners.

The use of merit pay to obtain, retain, and affect student achievement is a lesser used, but not unknown, methodology. In the 1920s, 40 to 50 percent of all urban school districts adopted a merit pay plan. Interest waned and then resurfaced in the 1950s and, by 1960; one in ten public schools adopted a form of merit pay. Interest declined in the 1970s and rose again in the 1980s, and in 2010.

Implementation of merit pay can create a negative rivalry among teachers and districts. Because of decreases in test scores, some schools have begun to offer merit pay as a way to refocus teachers on the achievement of their students, with the hope of increasing the effectiveness of teachers (Ciruczak A.11). The increase of performance pay became a high priority for the United States Department of Education, especially after the Obama Administration allotted funds for a campaign called Race to the Top, which distributed around $4.3 billion dollars to schools throughout the country (Rosales). After the implementation of this program, feedback came pouring in. According to Kristen Dechert, Mississippi State Research and Curriculum Unit

The Teacher Salary Project states that “teachers make 14 percent less than people in other professions that require similar levels of education” (“Facts about Teachers”). If anything, teachers deserve to make much more than those “other professions”. Even though teacher salary varies throughout the country, it is overall too low bringing to life an issue that needs to be recognized as an important one and must be properly addressed in order to improve several aspects of schooling (Nir) (See Fig. 1). Because the education system holds teachers responsible for molding their students’ futures, delivering and planning focused daily lessons, and putting in extra work time outside of school, they should be held accountable for ensuing teachers the higher pay that they deserve.

Political movements like the “No child left behind”, have in turn placed political pressures on teachers. This is largely impart because teachers are intimately integrated into a larger political fight, that of educational reform. When considering educational reform, teacher tenure reform becomes the hot topic under scrutiny. According to Greenwald (2010), “…teacher tenure represents all that is wrong with the system – protecting ineffective and unprofessional teachers” (p.20). However, statements like this take a one size fits all approach, which is generally a path of ignorance. Teacher tenure was created from a fight for First Amendment protections and freed teachers from harsh administrators, protected teachers from principals who could simply hire and fire at their own whim (Greenwald, 2010). Schools that are located in areas with high poverty and crime are usually underfunded and good teachers are not attracted by what they are being paid for those positions. Should teachers get special treatment and pay, because they are educators? The recruitment efforts of hiring new teachers into bad impoverished areas should be offset by higher salaries and combat pay to compensate for the risk of working in that type of environment. Teacher tenure was created from a fight for First Amendment protections and freed teachers from harsh administrators, protected teachers from principals who could simply hire and fire at their own whim (Greenwald, 2010).

The controversy of the merit pay system has been a highly contentious discussion in the field of education, most notably in my school district. As stated in the Education Commission of the United States, merit pay is pay for performance where a teacher’s compensation is tied to the performance in the classroom (2010). While merit pay for classroom teachers has been around for decades, it is increasingly becoming an issue around the country. As seen in my district, the issue has become a non-negotiable topic as the district is negotiating a new contract with the teacher’s union. The district’s proposal to include it in the new contract in order to improve student outcomes, attract new, highly qualified teachers to the district, and retain the proficient teachers already employed in the schools. The political influence increased when President Barack Obama introduced the Race to the Top Initiative. As stated in Howell & Magazinnik, the Race to the Top Initiative was created to stimulate the adoption of education reforms in the state governments of education (2017). The debate has been ongoing surrounding the pros and cons of merit pay with both supporters and opposition. The merit pay system will continue to have legal implications for school leaders as it impacts the rights of teachers, but the impact on student achievement. I support merit pay as it is prescribed to tie teacher performance to pay increases.

The idea that teachers should be compensated based on their performance has Canadians entrenched in a heated debate. In 2014, a report published by the Fraser Institute advocating for teacher incentive pay was immediately met with

1. Assess the advantages and disadvantages of using a Web-based compensation tool verses a client-server based or stand-alone PC based system and then give your opinion on which system would provide the most value to an organization’s stakeholders. Include three (3) facts to support your opinion.

The merit increase is normally given on th e basis of an employees having achieved some objective performance standard, although a superior’s subjective evaluation of subordinate performance may play a large role in the increase given. Merit raises can serve to motivate if employees perceive the raise given to be related to the performance required to earn them.